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Malalai Joya: Foreign troops must leave Afghanistan

Malalai Joya.

March 25, 2012 -- Green Left Weekly/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Malalai Joya, a former MP and one of Afghanistan’s
best-known democratic leaders, recently survived the sixth attempt on
her life. Taliban gunmen attacked her office at 3 am on March 10,
wounding two of her guards. In an exclusive interview, she told Green Left Weekly/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal’s Pip Hinman that “such terrorist acts will never stop my fight for freedom, democracy and justice”.

Pip Hinman: The US says it will start withdrawing its troops by the end
of 2012. The Australian government is refusing to specify a date, saying
there is a lot of “training” of Afghan soldiers still needed. What is
your response?

Malalai Joya: Australia’s policy is to find an excuse to service the United States.
The Afghan national army and police haven’t been created to look after
the welfare of our people. They are being trained to be the cannon
fodder so that the occupiers’ causalities decrease.

There are hundreds of security companies connected to these
criminals. The government claims to be closing them down, but very few
are. A real national army and police need to be independent of these
corrupt elements.

Since US soldiers’ were caught burning the Koran, the Afghan
protests demanding the US-NATO forces leave have become a lot more
visible in the West. To what extent do these protests represent the
views of ordinary Afghans?

These protests have been strong for some time. They continue but the
national security agency of Afghanistan, KHAD, is doing all it can to
try and stop them. Even so, many people take great risks — including
jail and being tortured to death — to continue the public demonstrations
against the occupiers.

Is the democratic movement growing stronger?

Afghanistan is one of the most oppressed, devastated, closed and
poorest nations in the world. You could say the US and its allies chose a
good time to occupy. From the ruthless Soviet occupation, followed by
the horrific war of the fundamentalist Jihadis and the cruel rule of the
Taliban, we are a very tired nation. Thirty years of war has trampled
our energy to resistance, to hope and to struggle.

The democratic movements do have to reorganise and strengthen
themselves, otherwise the democratic anti-occupation and
anti-fundamentalist uprisings will remain spontaneous and therefore more
easily suppressed by the government.

But there is also hope. As Belquis Roshan, the only MP to raise her
voice against the fundamentalists, said: “People have a lot of hatred
for the foreign troops and these protests will finally become an armed
struggle against the foreign occupiers and the local criminals who have
collaborated with them.”

With the US under pressure from global opposition to the war
in Afghanistan, it is now pushing the Hamid Karzai government to make a
deal with the Taliban. Is such a deal likely and what will this mean for
ordinary Afghans?

Of course — and this isn’t a new development. Former Taliban figures
such as Mullah Zaeef, Mullah Rakiti, Maulvi Wakeel and Ahmad Motawakil
helped create this regime in 2001. Members of the criminal Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar’s party also have seats as so-called technocrats, ministers,
ambassadors, governors and commanders. This hasn’t stopped them
committing crimes against our people.

Karzai is the main negotiator between the US and Taliban. To make the
latter happy, he is supporting a bunch of misogynist Ulemas, so-called
religious scholars, to pass a code that includes preventing women from
walking on the streets without a male companion.

These same reactionaries have just announced that Nawroz is
prohibited. Yet the New Year festival, one of the oldest celebrated, is
part of our nation’s culture.

There is an Afghan proverb that, roughly translated, asks: “Is there something blacker than black?”

Afghans answer, “Yes, and that is the unity of Taliban, Jihadis and
the agents of Iran and Pakistan led by the US occupiers”. They know it
will bring even more grief, poverty and destruction.

What will this mean for women's rights?

Women have been the prime victims — subjected to extreme kinds of violence — during the 30 years of war.
Today, a Taliban-like jungle law, including the public flogging of
women, stoning to death, public strangulation and execution, is still
carried out in many provinces. But one day women will rise up and become
a determining force.

What are the political alternatives?

First, the foreign troops should leave Afghanistan immediately. The
US occupiers have made life hell by massacring innocent civilians and
supporting this brutal regime of warlords and fundamentalists.

History shows that nations liberate themselves. Democracy and justice
can’t be imposed by a foreign power — especially by the US with its
history of overthrowing democratic regimes and imposing dictators and
murderers on countless nations since World War II.

The Karzai regime has to be uprooted and the criminals of the past 30
years must be brought to justice for their unforgivable crimes. Only
independent, democratic and pro-women’s rights forces can bring peace
and liberation, and this will only be possible through our own
struggles.

Despite widespread opposition to the war, there is still a
chorus in the West who argue that women's rights have improved. Is this
true?

Recently, a 22-year-old girl from Ghor province was hanged after
having been a victim of domestic violence. An 18-year-old teacher in
Baghlan province was gang-raped by armed men.

Two small girls, one of who was six years old, and a woman were raped
by local commanders in Takhar province. A man axed his wife to death by
chopping off her fingers and toes. Fifteen-year-old Sadat, a newlywed,
committed self-immolation to escape her misery.

This is just the tip of the iceberg: such crimes are increasing. But
because the media is owned by misogynist criminals who kill, kidnap or
threaten journalists who report on such atrocities, the facts are not
reported.

There is the story of 15-year-old Sahar Gul, who was cruelly tortured
by her husband. He locked her up in a windowless room and used pliers
to pull out her nails, clumps of her hair and big chunks of her flesh.

Twenty-one-year-old Gulnaz was raped by a relative and, when she
complained, was accused of adultery and sentenced to 12 years’ jail. The
rapist was sentenced to just three years.

Gulnaz gave birth in prison and when a foreign journalist publicised
her case, the court told her she could be freed in three years if she
married her rapist. The case went public and Karzai intervened to get
her released. Meanwhile, thousands of other women in similar situations
suffer in Afghan jails.

The Pakistan military has close ties with both the US and
the Taliban. What do you think of the Pakistan military’s role in the
war in Afghanistan?

The close ties between the Pakistan military and the US is an open
secret. But elements in the Pakistani military are more under the
influence of Pakistani fundamentalists and they want to destroy the
father-son connection between it and the US. Neither situation is good
for freedom-loving Pakistanis.

Zia-ul-Haq, one of Pakistan’s dictators, once said that Bangladesh’s
separation from Pakistan was a blessing because when the Soviets invaded
Afghanistan, Pakistan received a lot of US support. More than 50% of
CIA funding went to the Afghan mujahideen through the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). This is how Pakistan managed to make the mujahideen its hired hand.

Zia-ul-Haq also encouraged the brutal Jamaat-i-Islami — a party that became the godfather of these criminals.

The ISI and Jamaat-i-Islami have these criminals in their pockets and
after [former Afghan president] Mohammad Najibullah’s downfall in 1992,
these criminals came to power in Afghanistan. After four years of not
being able to form a government, Pakistan was forced to bring in its
other lackeys — the Taliban.

Although Pakistan government sometimes has disagreements with its
lackeys, the connection to the Taliban remains strong. Pakistan failed
to keep the Jihadis united and it is careful not to repeat the same
mistake with the Taliban. It is determined to keep their devoted agents
and maintain their interests in Afghanistan.

Both countries are ruled by reactionary and anti-people governments.
To expand our democratic rights, independent and anti-fundamentalist
alliances need to be set up.

We have a Farsi proverb that says: “Better is a neighbor who is near
than a brother who is far away.” Forming a sort of progressive South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, which includes Iran, would
help.

It’s also our duty to expose the brutal Iranian regime, which while
pretending to be “anti-imperialist” commits unimaginable crimes against
its own people.

To what extent are Afghans inspired by the “Arab Spring” revolts?

The “Arab Spring” revolts are synonymous with breaking the chains of
fascism and overthrowing dictatorships. But reactionaries, such as
Abdullah Abdullah, Amrullah Saleh, Qanooni, have polluted its meaning by
saying that Afghanistan will also rise up like the Egyptians.

A true Arab Spring for Afghans will come only when people rise
against all the criminals, including these ones, and force them to face
justice for their crimes.

Although Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in Egypt, his regime has not
been annihilated. Meanwhile, the US installed its puppet. So the
Egyptian people must continue their struggle against this traitor
government.

Muhammad Qaddafi, the anti-people dictator in Libya, should have been
overthrown by the Libyans themselves and not by foreign invaders.

The US is also trying to sabotage the revolution by freedom-loving
and democracy-seeking Syrians. It wants to install a puppet government
to drag Syria back to the Middle Ages — just as it did in Iraq and
Libya. Bashar Assad is a dictator and needs to be overthrown — but by
the Syrian people’s initiative, not an invasion from the US, Saudi
Arabia or Turkey.

Syria’s revolution is taking longer to be victorious because the US
and Saudi Arabia — the new “human rights” champions — are meddling. In
addition, Britain and France have their own plans and traitor agents in
Syria.

The Gulbuddini terrorists [mercenary militias of the warlord
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who went to fight in Bosnia and Azerbaijan], Jihadi
criminals and Taliban killers have been mobilised to lead terrorist
operations against the Assad regime. The Syrian people are aware of the
treacherous crimes by these foreigners, and so are forced to support
Assad.

One of the reasons the Arab Spring revolts were left incomplete comes
down to a lack of organisation — without which revolution is not
possible. The revolts came about through conscious grassroots movements:
they will rise again to uproot these regimes.

The Arab uprisings are inspirational — but at this stage we can only
dream of making a “Tahrir Square” in Kabul. Afghans need to learn from
others so that our struggle is not defeated.